By Abu B. Shaw
Workers at Sierratel, Sierra Leone telecommunications provider have returned to work today, the Patriotic Vanguard can authoritatively confirm. A reliable source in Freetown revealed that the striking workers were threatened with instant dismissal by the government if they did not return to work. That did the trick; they showed up for work today albeit reluctantly.
Sierra Leone’s ailing telecommunication system has long been an accident waiting to happen. This fear became a reality recently when staff of SIERRATEL, decided to down their tools after going for months without pay.
The industrial strike, which took place within the second and third week of May, became so bad that even the first citizen of Sierra Leone President Alhaji Tejan Kabbah was seriously affected. The Presidential Lodge land telephone went dead.
A temporal measure, instituted by the ruling government, was put in place to minimise the damage. The Sierra Leone Police were deployed to run SIERRATEL, an effort which bore bitter fruits according to sources in Freetown.
SIERRATEL sources say their workers downed tools because of persistent failures of the ruling SLPP government to pay their wages. The deployment of police officers to carry out the day to day operations of SIERRATEL reportedly aggravated the fragile situation. Angry staff felt the Kabbah government is bypassing the problem and not keen on resolving the impasse.
An aggrieved SIERRATEL worker who prefers not to be named told the Patriotic Vanguard that he had been working without pay for nearly three months now. “I have a family to feed, clothe and house. SLPP is refusing to pay us. It is unbearable. Dis na demo-crazy nor to democracy,” he lashed at the ruling government.
The strike also severely affected the business community in the country as many of them depend on land lines and fax machines to conduct business.
Sierra Leoneans living in the diaspora also felt the pinch though unsuspectingly as they could not reach their families back home. Had it not been for the emergence of cell phones in the country, it could have been practically impossible to get in touch with loved ones in Sierra Leone a fortnight ago.
It was only after frantic diplomatic efforts by the embattled SLPP government to lure telecom staff back to work that reportedly made some senior SIERRATEL workers to mellow down. As a result of this development, some land telephone lines were restored on Wednesday May 24 after the premature silencing of this essential communication technology.
Photo: Dr. Prince Harding, Sierra Leone’s Transport and Communications minister.
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